


if on a winter's night a lover

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Always Female Prompto Argentum, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Heterosexual Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 20:53:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17107934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: As the nights grow shorter and colder and as the stars fall toward the winter solstice, Ignis steals a spark of beauty and brightness and bravery for himself, in the form of a girl named Prompto.





	if on a winter's night a lover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notavodkashot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/gifts).



> As with [closing walls and ticking clocks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941456), this is explicit Promnis fic with a Rule 63’d Prompto. You know my predilections by now, I hope, and I hope you enjoy this one too.
> 
> (Written as a holiday fic present; posted 12/23 UTC+8.)

Whistle of the wind and creak of the hinges, as the large glass doors swing open again, again, again, admitting three people and then another two who seem to be chasing hot on their heels -- and Ignis watches, a little bemused, as their collective forward momentum seems to be stymied by the short queue -- and then they all exchange smiles and shakes of the head, and add themselves to the end of the line.

He’d be surprised, honestly, but it doesn’t make sense for him to feel that way. Not when he’s working the night shift in a popular coffee shop in the heart of the university district, and not when the end of the year is coming up and the usual cadre of less-than-kind professors has scheduled papers and presentations and examinations in the week before winter break.

There’s a reason why this particular shop is always hiring -- if anything, he’d been surprised when he’d been taken on in a hurry -- admittedly he’d presented himself with a year of barista experience already under his belt, and some unusual tastes when it came to specific blends and roasts of coffee, and now he’s wearing a couple of shiny enameled pins on the strap of his apron, like credentials, like trainer badges.

That’s not his phrase, that’s Iris’s -- who bounces up to him at the till, now, and nods -- and he’s grateful to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and step away from the never-ending trickle of under-caffeinated students and academics and all manner of university-bound people besides.

Squeezing past the others behind the long island that serves as prep central -- past Gladio who’s balancing three plates of pastry and two massive cups of coffee, and laughing about it all the while; past Noctis who’s laser-focused on the latte art he’s making, the neat little scales on the fish curved in mid-leap; past Aranea, who’s long past the stage of slinging coffee and cake but there she is, expediting and prioritizing the growing queue of cups and their scribbled shorthand of coffee and flavorings and sprinkles and everything else; past Cindy, at the other register, who somehow never fails to find a smile for whoever happens to be right in front of her, hunting through pockets and purse for money -- it takes him a while, but he’s earned the extended break, he thinks, as he finally pulls off the neck-loop of his apron and steps out the door.

And the winter wind hits him right in the face, slices at his cheeks, and it doesn’t mean anything that he’s wearing a turtleneck beneath his uniform dress shirt, because his ears are far too cold and he claps his hands over them, desperately trying to catch some kind of warmth.

Nyx, blowing smoke rings next to the entrance of the alleyway, doesn’t even laugh at him -- only winces in sympathy and turtles back down into the popped collars of his leather jacket. 

Ignis doesn’t want to bother him, anyway, not when he’s chain-smoking, lighting another cigarette off the butt-end of this one -- maybe Nyx is trying to warm himself on the smoldering ash, too -- and he settles instead for tucking his hands into his pockets, for shuffling his booted feet idly on the pavement.

Tips his head backwards as Nyx tries to whistle, and taps him companionably on the shoulder on the way back in.

It’s a clear night, is what Ignis discovers, when he gets past the murk and the haze of the light pollution -- so clear he can see constellations like old friends, imaginary shapes of sickle and river and the bow of a goddess, and -- an old song rises in the back of his mind, and he almost wants to sing but it’s far too cold and he’ll short out his voice, in these winds, in these swirls of frost already lining the windows of the boutique across the street -- swirls of frost half-obscuring the lacy dresses on display, the elegant velvet smoking jacket on the single mannequin.

He still lets himself subvocalize the lines of the song, still lets the words tumble around in the spaces of his head: _Thunder only happens when it’s raining, and players only love you when they’re playing --_

“Nice,” and that’s Aranea’s voice, nearly muffled in the thick white-and-blue scarf that she’s wound around her neck in a complicated knot. “Shit weather for that kind of thing though.”

“Caroling would be a bad idea in these temperatures,” he says, and her presence here means his break is over and he’ll have to brace himself to face the crush and the crowds once again: but that’s all right. He doesn’t have to work the till any more, and he can focus on coffee beans instead, and the careful proportions of -- things like sweeteners and flavored syrups and dairy-ish additions.

Even the shakers of colored sugar-crystals seem a little festive, with the song in his head, with the rhythm that guides him, and he loses himself in the paper cups, in the clatter and the clash, despite the periodic need to lean away from the clouds forming on his eyeglasses every time he deals with scalding-hot coffee -- 

Bell, quiet, low, that he can feel more than he can hear -- its tones thrilling up through the soles of his feet -- and the conversations on the floor stop, almost respectfully, for the length of those long powerful peals. There’s a meditation in it, in the hundred-and-eight repetitions of the note that the bell sings out into the last hours of the night, in the bell’s tolling that signals the start of another week.

The bell is situated in a soaring gray-and-red tower on one of the campuses in the district -- it used to be the tallest structure around -- Ignis has memories of staking out a shaded bench in the tiny oasis of trimmed grass and artfully scattered flowering bushes at the foot of the tower, covering sheaves of paper with annotations, his pen spinning through the fingers of one hand -- but its song resonates through all of the other universities in their various shapes, in their various teaching spaces, and its song creates a spellbound hush in the coffee shop once again, for the duration of its monotone voice rising and rising in the night.

After, the silence stretches on for a moment -- and then Nyx pulls a shot of espresso and the too-loud hiss of the steam is followed by a trickle of giggling from the girls crammed into one of the nearer corners, hands momentarily stilled over their laptops and tablets -- and the quiet dissolves rapidly into renewed conversation, like a sugar cube stirred into hot coffee.

“It was nice while it lasted,” he hears Cindy say.

“It always is.” Iris’s response is half a hum and half an amused sigh.

The next sound that cuts through the roar is the sort of mini-siren that makes the hairs on the back of Ignis’s neck stand up – still does, even when he’s been hearing it nearly every time he’s on the night shift -- and the absolute silence that follows still feels like shock would, if it were a heavy weight thrown suddenly onto his shoulders, clawing and dampening.

But the siren, and Aranea standing next to the button that produces it, means that the coffee shop has to close for three hours for cleaning -- and it means the end of Ignis’s shift.

Or it will be, as soon as he deals with the last stragglers in the queue -- as soon as he deals with whoever it is who opens the door, blowing another gust of icy wind down the back of his collar -- 

“Hi everyone -- ”

Ignis’s hands go still over the shot he’s pulling, and -- he feels the smile tug at his mouth, entirely unexpected and entirely welcome. Feels the pull in his chest towards that singular voice, that unmistakable accent, grounding him firmly in the here and now as he swings back into action.

How many times has he heard that voice cut through an entire crowd of chattering nonsense? How many times has he heard it whispering, invitingly, shaping secrets and jokes shared only with him? How many times has it heard it rising, involuntary, in the throes of dreams -- in the throes of passion?

He finishes the drink he was making and -- he doesn’t even glance at Noctis, who is grinning from over the register, who is counting out change, who is joking about giving out an extra sticker for the winter-holiday collectible (an almost elegant travel wallet, and he’d pick one up for himself, but his cousin has already promised to find something a little more to his tastes, and he trusts her in those matters, without hesitation).

“Oh, you weren’t here the other day,” that lovely voice is saying, and Ignis can hear the remainders of a mercifully short-lived head cold in the vowels. “I gave my sticker away to -- the mom who was a couple of places down the line.”

“No, really?” Noctis is asking. “Why her in particular?”

“She said her daughter wanted a wallet of her own.”

“Some of us might argue that you shouldn’t be getting any more stickers at all,” and that’s Aranea, sharp joking drawl. “I mean, you’re practically an employee here.”

“Lucky for you I’m not really collecting stickers then, but Lib asked, so.” Laughter like bright coppery chimes, and Ignis lets the smile out at last, at the chocolate chips and coffee-bean-shaped candies in the bottom of the last cup on his part of the counter. 

That voice, continuing: “...ah, I keep saying, never again, never again, I’m not gonna work in a book shop during the winter holiday rush but, but, I’m so weak for comics -- ”

“Pull list. You need to update your pull list,” Noctis is saying, interrupting. “I heard about a couple of new titles you might be interested in.”

“As long as it isn’t that weird body horror thing again, I still haven’t forgiven you for that!”

Ignis laughs, and washes his hands under the scalding-hot tap -- he doesn’t flinch at all, he’d rather have that rush of heat lingering in his skin -- scrubs the coffee-grounds from under his fingernails and then he’s undoing the knots in his apron, he’s unclipping his pins and his name badge and the pen he wears in the pocket on his shirt-sleeve.

“All done,” he says, to the others, “good night.”

“See you in a couple days,” he hears Aranea say.

Struggle through the jostling crowd of university people as they make their way out the door; someone turns the lights in the shop foyer off, and someone else must have gotten into the staff room first because the speakers tucked into the rafters start blasting music, something full of complicated drum-flourishes and the wail of an entire horn section -- and when he gets to the star-tipped hairpins arranged in a loose crown in ruffled and spiked blonde hair, the beat drops and Gladio shouts, “Okay, we’re closed, come back in three hours!”

He reaches out to a sleeve of black-and-red check, something almost like a tartan.

Chipped black-and-glitter polish on her hand, that she turns so she can hold on to him properly, and he’s so glad, so glad, to be held on to like this.

So does she, he thinks, if the kiss she presses to his scalded knuckles is any indication. “I should be worried you keep doing the thing, but -- you’re so warm. I just want to melt into you.”

“I made the mistake of stepping out without my jacket earlier,” he begins, as he leads her toward the staff room to retrieve that jacket and the rest of his things. “And that might not have been the best idea. I might still be chilled everywhere else.”

“Gonna snow tonight, the weather forecast said,” she says, and shivers, theatrically, in the doorway, and he hates to leave her there -- even when she’s bundled into a puffy vest, into opaque black tights and knee-high boots -- so he hurries through the things he needs to do at his locker, and shrugs hurriedly into his jacket and into the knitted beanie in the pocket of that jacket -- the knitted beanie that almost matches her tartan-shirt. 

“I’m glad I don’t have to work later.”

“So am I,” he says, and: “Home?”

“Yes please.”

But he still stops on the corner nearest the coffee shop because he wants to look at her, at this girl, at this Prompto in her layers and the thin wisp of steam that she exhales.

How patient she is with him.

How grateful he is for her: and he says it, out loud, because she needs to hear it. “You’re indulging me again. Thank you.”

Smile, and tilt of her head towards her shoulder, and the street-light throws the usual arcs of gold into her hair -- but the wreath-shaped holiday lanterns were installed over the previous week and so there are extra colors playing over her, blue and green and red, all of them catching in her stars, in the various copper hoops she wears in the shell of her left ear. “You look like you need -- some kind of recovery.” Words, understanding, just for him. “That kind of day?”

“That kind of week, every day,” he says, sighing. “And the cold isn’t helping, so -- I might as well swallow my pride and wear the shop jacket, starting my next shift. I’d rather be warm, but people will be inconvenient, and blow cold air in with them.”

“Sorry,” she says, immediately. “That was me coming in late. Didn’t mean to either -- but Cor blew up at mine -- he was completely justified in throwing a fit, you know him, right? -- I had to stick around to help clean up afterwards and he said he’d give me a small bonus. I wanted to help is all, but -- ” Shrug, that makes her sleeves ripple. “I won’t say no to any kind of bonus.”

“You deserve every single one of them,” he says, and he plucks at the lace peeking out of her shirt-hems with admiration. “I want to see you properly.”

“What were you doing just now?” But she’s laughing as she says it -- as she loops her arm into his and starts walking, brisk pace that means he hears the urgent click of her boot-heels, soothing counterpoint to the rush of his pulse.

It’s so easy to walk with her, to press kisses into the top of her head as they step along -- and the city whirls past them, in its too-early hush and the zebra lanes already filling in with a sheen of ice crystals -- still, it’s far too cold to linger, or to propose any kind of detour, and he’s more than pleased to run up the steps to her place, more than pleased to bypass the ancient elevator -- warmth in his knees and his calves and his ankles as he chases Prompto up four flights of steep stairs, as she unlocks her door and all but yanks him inside.

Click of her hand on a switch -- the room fills with a blue-tinged light, white light-bulbs within intricately embroidered lampshades -- more than enough light to see her by -- he waits for her to shrug off her puffy vest, to unbutton her shirt, and then he smiles and taps his fingertips against her wrist. “Let me?”

“Wha?”

He kisses the upturned tip of her nose, just to make her smile. 

And he gets down on one knee to undo the zipper in the back of her boot -- weight of her hand on his shoulder as he pries that one off, turns to do the same for the other -- now he can lean back a little and look.

With the tartan shirt hanging open, he can see where her lace is coming from: a knee-length dress in pale-colored material, overlaid with slightly darker lace in shapes that make him think of lanterns and folding fans. Its collar rises to cover half her throat; its long sleeves disappear beneath her black and red checks. 

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

The lamplight illuminates the dark flush of her -- illuminates, too, the sudden sharp sweetness in her eyes, sly and knowing, that makes his heart skip a beat. “Can I see you too?”

He feels his weariness almost trickle away, and he doesn’t hesitate at all. “How do you want me?”

“Stay there,” she says, and she laughs low and knowing, and he knows she can hear the hitch in his breath in response.

Jacket and beanie aside, and then his fingers catch on the buttons of his shirt, the buckle of his belt -- rattling noises as he undoes, huffing noises as he breathes -- the shiver that runs through him when he pushes his shirt off his shoulders isn’t from the cold at all.

It’s from the sigh of Prompto as she carefully fits herself into his lap, and he wraps his arms around her for the pleasure of holding her, for the pleasure of bracing her, and he closes his eyes and tips his face up to her. 

Her wandering fingertips tracing out his eyebrows, the lines at the corners of his eyes. His ears, his jaw, the bridge of his nose.

He groans her name, quietly, when she pushes her hands into his hair and -- scratches at his scalp, and maybe she means to calm him but the warmth of her is too close, too good, and she has the opposite effect entirely. Rush of his blood in his veins, shiver of his pulse in his hands around her waist, need coiling in his nerves -- 

“Haven’t gotten to the best part yet,” she murmurs, right against his mouth.

He hisses out a breath, tries to control the excitement that leaps through him, but -- her smile is sharpening, perhaps in response to the needy twitch of his cock -- perhaps because she’s leaning in to kiss him, and he tries to give as good as he gets because she’s kissing him like she’s a fire, like she’s a storm, elemental powerful possessive -- nip of her teeth, sweep of her tongue --

He groans, winds his hands up into her hair -- grips tightly, knowing that when he pulls on those strands she’ll shake for him, the sound of her need falling from her lush mouth in a long hiss -- he’s not expecting her to bite at him, to all but snarl his name: “Ignis.”

That’s a command, too, that’s nothing more or less than an order, and he hangs on to the moment, hangs on to the supplication that pierces him through with her gaze as she focuses on him again, far too near -- blurring out as she pulls away his eyeglasses -- strange contrast of her hands, gentle as they grasp glass and metal and set them aside, heavy and rough as she catches him at the shoulders. “Not till I say so,” she breathes.

“Need you,” he manages to gasp.

“I know you do, but you’re gonna have to wait.”

“No,” he says, grinning, and it’s his turn to kiss her hard and bruising and she keens, presses herself against him -- he almost growls again when he feels her breasts against his chest, and he can’t resist thumbing at her nipple, deliberately -- it’s so easy to find and he gets such a rush out of her reactions. The jolt of her entire body against him, the soft needy cry that fills the spaces between them -- 

Movement -- he’s falling, hand on the back of his head to cushion the impact against bare floors -- he gasps when she mouths at his throat -- the turtleneck that he’s still wearing does absolutely nothing to dull the scrape of her teeth, the possessiveness of her kiss.

In fact, the turtleneck only seems to make him even more sensitive, as she sweeps her hands down his chest: heels of her palms digging into the fabric, nails and their glitter flashing at him as she does to him what he’d done to her, and he rises helplessly into her touch, need like a flash-fire, whiting out the edges of his mind.

“Good?”

Incongruously gentle word, cutting through the wild roar in his ears.

He blinks up at her, more than a little dazed. “Prompto.”

“You okay?”

He laughs, he really does, and then he rolls his hips upwards and it doesn’t matter that she’s actually sitting mostly on his belly, because she groans, because she scrambles backwards and now he can thrust properly against her, through the layers of their clothing -- once, twice, like he’s really trying to fuck her already, never mind his trousers and the damp spot he’s already made in his boxer-briefs, never mind her tights and whatever else she might be wearing beneath them -- 

“More than good,” he hears her say -- then she skins her shirt away and then he’s distracted again: how well her lace clings to her chest, showing her off. How easily she doubles her arms up behind her to -- oh, sound of a zipper, she doesn’t seem to need any help pulling it down but it’s a long, long mutter of metal and separation, and the shift of her arms is mesmerizing -- all the way until her hand stops at his groin, and now it’s the muscles in her legs, shifting, deliciously.

“Stay there.”

And Prompto rises back to her feet. 

The zipper of her dress stops right at the hem, which means that he’s looking at her with her hand framed by the contrast between pale lace and dark stockings.

There’s nowhere else he’d rather be; there’s nothing for him to do but be riveted to the movements of her, as she leans forward a little and pulls one sleeve away, and then the other, and -- her winter-paled skin looks delicious against everything else that she’s wearing, shades of black and of dark blue.

“Prompto,” he says, then.

“Yeah.”

“Where do you want me?”

Oh, he knows what his words do to her -- the drop of her jaw, the flash of wicked need in her eyes, the shiver that seems to run upwards -- her belly, her chest, her shoulders, and all the way to her hair -- he knows what her reactions do to him, too, and he doesn’t wait for her to answer -- he just reaches for his flies and what a relief it is, pressure on his cock vanishing as he pulls down his trousers, his boxer-briefs.

“Keep your shirt on?”

But it’s not a demand: it’s only a question, and one that comes with a renewed blush -- he gets to his feet, scrambling, and he laughs and pulls her into his arms. “Beloved. You know you only had to ask.”

The tension of orders, of restraints, doesn’t really fall away -- it just changes into something sweeter, something that catches in her laugh, that makes her eyes sparkle, and he scatters kisses over her freckles and feels her wind her arms around him, and it doesn’t matter how strange it might seem, because it feels good to have her laugh in his arms, even as he backs her towards her bed.

He watches her pull away, but only for long enough to take off her bra, her tights, her panties -- and now he pulls her close, tries to warm her, because he’s still technically clothed -- and at her request -- but it’s also far too cool and he gathers her in, smooths his hands up her thighs, up past her waist and then over her arms, heading for her shoulders. “Prompto.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, I want you and -- can I still be on top?”

“Anything you want,” he says, and he means it, he tries to show it in his face, in his eyes.

And he has a front-row seat -- the only seat in the house, come to think of it, which he stops doing nearly immediately -- to the next shift in her expression, in her lovely face -- the hunger of her, the smile that vanishes as she wets her lips with the tip of her tongue. 

He knows his mouth falls open; he knows he wants to call her name -- not a sound escapes him, not really, because she’s tossing her head -- light catching on the decorations still in her hair -- and she’s coming down on him, around him, her need like the most vicious undertow and he’ll be more than happy to drown in her, to lose himself in -- all the sensations of her, all the movements of her.

Her mouth on his chest, suckling at him, the swirl of her tongue over his shirt.

Her hands: one on his hip, heavy enough to keep him in place -- but he wants to shift up towards her, he needs to shift up towards her -- he can only call out once, strangled, not quite her name and not quite the word he calls her -- he doesn’t have enough mind left in him to parse the difference because her other hand is grasping him -- familiar fit of her fingers around his cock, tease of her thumbnail against his balls -- 

Whisper of her voice, razor-edge of her lust: “Can I have you?”

He finds his words then: “Prompto, yes, yes, please!”

Mewl of his name, sweet agony of waiting -- only a moment, only a moment, shift in her over him, angling -- and then she’s pressing him into her, fitting his cock into her, the hardness of him and the immense beautiful pressure of her -- he shouts again, wordless this time, hot wet clench of her walls around him, driving all his thoughts and all his reason away and he can only feel. 

Feel the need that shocks through him, that spurs him to move -- it takes a moment to find the rhythm that matches hers where she’s grinding down into him -- he rolls his hips up, twisting a little on the upstroke until -- 

“That, that’s it, come on Ignis come on -- ”

He seizes her thighs, rough now, pulls her down into him again and again and again -- her hands around his, just as powerful a grip, like she’s hanging on to him everywhere.

He wants to last, oh, he wants her to ride him until he’s gone, he wants her to take him use him fly apart for him -- 

Tide of her shaking over him, whine that falls from her lips, and he swears he can feel the moment her climax takes her, the moment of stillness and the tight arch of her body, that turns into rolling shattering and the gasp of her breath -- 

And this time he finds the strength to sit back up and -- she topples onto her back in response and he checks in, he tries to, touches her mouth with his thumb and she smiles for him. Nods.

Relief drips through him -- quickly burned away by his own need and he drives himself into her, rough grip on her hips and he feels the way she’s fighting to get close to him, the twist and the surge of her body against his -- too quickly the reprieve she’d granted him with her climax shatters -- the roar in his ears, the gasps falling from her lips, he’s suspended over that incredible abyss for a long long moment -- 

“Ignis!”

He says her name, soundlessly, when the pleasure crests at last and blasts through him, scours down his nerves, and he empties himself into her, shaking in time with his strained pulse.

He only has enough sense to brace his hand against the bed, next to her cheek -- it’s the grip on his shoulder that pulls him down onto her.

Shaky laughter, that he feels before he hears -- the lowest tones of Prompto, rippling along his skin.

“Love you,” he thinks he mumbles, drunkenly, into her sweat-soaked hair, the strands curling wildly against his mouth.

“Fuckin’ love you, you know that,” he thinks she says, in return, and he laughs, too, or tries to -- hard to catch his breath after the intensity of their lovemaking -- 

She’s here, and he’s here with her, surrounded by her, smelling of her -- even his turtleneck is soaked with her, in so many good ways.

And here he can be content, and hum to her of stars, of thunder and lightning.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) \-- or, hey, if Tumblr becomes too rotten and we can't talk there any more, there's always Twitter, where I am @ninemoons42.


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